


Gone From The World

by Kastaka



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-31
Updated: 2016-01-31
Packaged: 2018-05-17 11:59:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 490
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5868556
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kastaka/pseuds/Kastaka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Hunt of the White Stag, Tumnus undertakes his own hunt...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone From The World

**Author's Note:**

  * For [DesertScribe](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesertScribe/gifts).



A faun wasn't much for riding a horse. 

The hips, you see - they don't turn as well as a human's - well, certainly not these days, anyhow. Maybe a young faun could have done it.

But a stag was fleet, and prideful, and an old faun could be quiet, especially across snow; and since the last failed hunt he had been training, walking and jogging for days across the plains and through the deep forest, barely stopping to eat, never falling to sleep.

(They had searched for the Kings and Queens for days on end without rest, and the days dragged into weeks and the weeks dragged into months, and he had combed every last inch of the place that he lived when it was clear their trail had led them by. 

But they had gone into a thicket, and not gone out, and there was no trace of what means they had left by; not when every tree was felled, not when the dwarves excavated as careful as any old castle ruin which might hold untold treasures.)

He had sold his home, sold his library, called in every last favour and worked every last connection that he had built up in his time as occasional royal adviser and, furthermore, close personal friend of the Queens - especially Lucy, who had always made time for him.

All mundane art, all magic that he could find any able to call upon, said they had gone from the world entirely, at least for this generation.

As one who had been close to them, he was in much demand, but he could not bear to usurp their place.

He saw the visage of the Lion in his dreams, once, but Aslan simply looked sadly upon him, and then walked away.

When his informants brought him news of the Stag, days before any others would know, he picked up his always-ready provisions and supplies, and set out on the hunt. The wishes granted by the Stag were the only hope that remained to him.

He stalked it patiently down through the days and nights, knowing he could not outrun it, praying that he could surprise it while it slept, before some other rode in and claimed the prize.

And then all of a sudden it was there, and he cast a net over it before he woke it gently.

The stag looked up at him, and suddenly he was overcome with a vision. Lucy, but a child once again; in a great building, with many tables and many children of her kind. A bell rings with a strange trill, like a woodpecker is ringing it with all its speed; she follows the other children into an expanse of concrete, and she is speaking to them, and she is laughing.

"I wish," Tumnus speaks aloud, into the quiet forest, "that I did not miss her so terribly."

In his mind's eye, Aslan turns back, and nods approvingly.


End file.
